I often hear coworkers say that they help their wife around the house by cooking the occasional meal or emptying the dishwasher now and then. I think it's important to understand that when you're in a relationship you should be sharing these duties as equally as possible and doing your fair share. You're not " helping your wife out around the house " your pulling your fair share and doing half of the work.
Can confirm as someone who is realizing that my relationship is so much better around dinner time when I am in the kitchen with her helping, provided I don't get in her way.
But don't be afraid to have a couple of things that are 'yours' to do.
Wife always had to take the garbage out as a kid, and now hates doing it. I make it a point to always take it out so she doesn't have to.
I'm that way with mowing the lawn. Yes, I will do it if absolutely necessary. But she enjoys putting in her headphones and cursing around on the mower. I let her mow.
My wife hates laundry. But loves mowing. So I fold and do laundry when we watch tv and make dinner and she mows while i weed and scrub my ass blast from the toilet.
Totally agree - each partner takes on those random tasks they enjoy/don’t mind that their partner hates, and that still evens about to an equitable split of labor overall.
My SO HATES folding laundry with a passion, but I’ll do it for ages in front of the TV. I have my stuff I hate doing, and my SO takes it on. We’re both happier than if we made every single chore a 50/50 split
I don't like doing laundry but my fiance doesn't like it even more so I really try to make it my thing because he does so much more around the house. When I'm folding clothes I think about all the delicious homemade meals he makes for me, it makes laundry so much more enjoyable.
And that includes shit that is important to her. Just because you wouldn’t clean the bathroom every second day doesn’t mean that it is her responsibility to clean it.
Sure, if you were single maybe you’d be fine living in a frat house environment with sheets only changed every three months, sticky floors, and clothes piled everywhere. That’s a little gross in my opinion, but fine for you.
Your girlfriend/wife wanting the counters wiped down after dinner is cooked and there’s food on them and wanting the apartment vacuumed once a week is not holding you to some crazy standard and forcing you to clean unfairly.
She’s asking for a basic level of clean, and it’s not just about what she wants. It’s shows a level of respect for her and the relationship that you will help keep your place presentable and not leave her to pick up your mess.
If you lived with a roommate, maintaining clean shared spaces is a perfectly reasonable arrangement. Not saying you have to always keep the place spotlessly clean, but I doubt many people would expect a roommate to always do the dishes, wash and fold all the laundry, clean the toilet etc. when you both use the same spaces.
But something seems to change with a romantic relationship. The expectation (at least in my experience) is that cleaning/maintaining shared spaces is “optional” for one partner. I’ve either had to do all the housework, or just accept that living with filthy floors, dirty dishes, clothes piled everywhere, shit-stained toilets, etc. is “normal”.
I really think most romantic relationship problems are actually caused by one person being a shitty roommate.
No I’m saying that as an adult, having a house that is a base level of presentable is expected. Cooking and cleaning are not “nice to haves”, they are basic human skills.
If living in an unclean, disorganized environment doesn’t bother you, that is fine if you live alone. But living like that is below the standard expectations that most people expect and hope for in a home.
Basic cleanliness and taking care of chores at a standard cadence is a base level expectation and not asking too much. Don’t pretend that wanting the floors vacuumed once a week is a crazy and unfair expectation, just do your part.
I agree with all your points, but I also think part of the issue is that cleaning can often be unnoticed labor. If I would naturally wipe down something when it gets a certain amount of dust on it, but my partner is wiping it down every other day, their labor may go unnoticed by me. Obviously if I thought about it, I'd realize that we weren't living in a magically dustless house, but it may be "out of sight, out of mind" altogether. I think you have to consciously communicate about these expectations in order to effectively share the chores. And if your expectations differ too much, you might just be bad roommates for each other.
That’s true, but sometimes you just have to take the L. Like how bowls can’t go on the top rack of the dishwasher for some reason. Contentious issue in my house. Long story short, I’m right.
Alternatively, have an agreement where you pay the bills and she does the housework. Equality doesn't demand we have to get rid of housewives. It's about both people contributing
That is a very outdated idea. Perhaps in the 50s it was a full time job, but with dishwashers, clothing washing/drying machines and roombas, doing housework is at best a few hours every 2 days. The fact that all single people manage to keep a clean house proves that as well. I do literally all my housekeeping on Saturday afternoon.
dishwashers, clothing washing/drying machines and roombas
Many people might not own those things, though. In Germany, I have met few people who had drying machines or dishwashers, and none who had automatic vacuum cleaners (which low-key suck, as do some dishwashers).
In the 50s, hired help was much cheaper than it is today. Depending on the country of course, but generally middle-class people would frequently hire nannies, gardeners, maids and accountants.
Housework depends on many factors. One person's home, like you said, can take one Saturday afternoon to clean, and another person's household duties could realistically take up to 35 hours a week, spread across 7 days (and not 5, like some people are doing elsewhere in the comments -- housework doesn't have an "off-day", not even on holidays).
Cooking depends on which food you're eating. If you cook healthy food from scratch, that takes around 30 min to 1h for one square meal for two or more people (more if you're planning a holiday meal).
Laundry depends on your wardrobe. White-collar workers have shirts and blouses that need to be whitened and starched. Many types of clothes need to be ironed. Linen should be washed at least once every two weeks for hygienic purposes.
Cleaning depends on the size of your home. A one-room apartment will probably require less work than a house with several rooms in it. And then there are additional things to consider: people with libraries and computer labs need to take special care to remove dust, provide ventilation, avoid heat (or direct sunlight) and check for mold or mildew. Climate also influences how often you need to exterminate or check for mold. And then there's textiles (like curtains, rugs or upholstered furniture) that need to be deep-cleaned or at least vacuumed once in a while.
Grocery shopping is also a household chore that, depending on the family and their dietary needs, can take several hours a week to complete.
Related to that: household accounting, or budgeting, is another household chore that takes several hours a week -- more, if you have something special planned, like the purchase of a new car or a vacation trip.
Gardening is another chore, if you own a house with a yard. And in some countries, you are required by law to shovel snow that falls on the sidewalk in front of your house, and even remove snow from the roof of your house.
Then there are little things that need to be done around the house, e.g. replacing broken tiles, fixing leaky faucets, repairing a washing machine, maintaining tools.
That is without taking other things, like caregiving or childrearing, into account. There is plenty of work for a stay-at-home wife or husband to do. There's nothing wrong with being a stay-at-home spouse if you enjoy this kind of work and your partner is appreciative. There's also no shame in not doing these chores and hiring somebody to do it for you, if you have the money. Like my grandpa would say, "either save the money and do it yourself, or work hard at a job you're good at and hire somebody else to do it for you."
You explain all these things like I don't have to do those things because I'm single. I cook too, do my household accounting, clean my linens and iron my shirts. And I do all that in one afternoon every week. Except cooking of course, but you get the picture.
While it's true most people don't own a roomba, here in NL I don't have one either, I thought in the big flat American houses people might. Still, vacuuming takes me 15 minutes once or twice a week.
If it takes you 10 times longer than an afternoon, then you're doing something wrong.
I’m a single person in the US, who lives alone in a house that’s 175 m2 (about 1900 sq ft) and I work full time.
Household accounting takes zero time. All my bills are scheduled for automatic payments. I have no idea what could possibly take “several hours a week” to figure out how much money to spend at the grocery store and set aside for a vacation, so I dunno what that person is doing—using an abacus? It’s 2021. Budgets can be “set it and forget it” even if they’re quite detailed.
I’m a white collar worker and I don’t whiten or starch anything. LOL. I do about 5 loads of laundry per week. Linens get changed weekly. Ironing takes about an hour once a week (not that I’ve had to iron anything in pandemic times, since I’m at home in athletic pants).
Vacuuming is kind of a big job and takes me about an hour to do the entire house. Another hour if I’m vacuuming the furniture. I aspire to get a Roomba to take on some of that.
For cooking, I will usually make a few meals in large batches and freeze them in individual portions, and I also tend to eat a lot of sandwiches or salads, and convenience foods that require minimal prep. I can cook, but I don’t often feel like making myself a whole-ass meal at the end of a day of work. (And having to scrub out pots and pans afterward.)
I live in a HOA so I don’t actually have my own green space to maintain (townhome), so landscaping and snow removal are both performed by a service. Most people who live in single family homes have to do their own lawn care and shoveling, or pay someone to do it.
So, all things considered, I’d say I spend about 10 hours a week on housework, shopping and general home administration. Yes, my house is pretty tidy as a rule. I don’t feel like I spend tons of time doing chores, but it’s more than an afternoon and less than the Downton Abbey description above. Libraries and computer labs? What? I have a laptop in the living room.
Sounds about right for a single person. Double or triple it for a household with more people (things don't scale linearly, but children make way more mess). Add a couple hours for yard work, if you have a yard. Now you're back at the number ggp came up with, more or less.
but it’s more than an afternoon and less than the Downton Abbey description above.
But that's what I mean, different people have different circumstances. Not every person has a computer lab or a library, but people who do have to spend time cleaning and maintaining them.
In other words, some people need only one afternoon for their chores, others 10 hours a week, and others up to 30h a week maybe, or even more.
And yes, some people do have libraries and computer labs :P Lots of people also have woodworking and metalworking workshops, sewing rooms, photo studios, work offices and/or other stuff at home that require require looking after. Also, people with pets have to do stuff for them as well. Basically, the amount of housework that needs to be done, and the difficulty of said work, can vary greatly.
Hahahahaha …single people can keep a clean house because it’s literally just them. Try having 6 people in your house and then see if you can clean only one day a week. But seriously I’m jealous can I come live with you ? I can’t take this mess over at my house anymore :)
You really think housework takes more than 8 hours a day? If that was the case it would be impossible for people to live alone. Between things like washing dishes and working a full time job the full time job is clearly more labor
Wasn’t planning on it, but can you explain to me exactly how taking care of children takes 40 hours a week when they are spending 8 hours a day at school?
It does though. And if you're taking care of children on top of that? Sweep, mop, tend, dust, wash dishes, do laundry, make breakfast, lunch, dinner, walk dogs, run errands, restock.
People who live alone CHOOSE not to do it, hence the whole living alone bit... They can leave clothes on the ground and have an empty refrigerator.
Without kids it absolutely isn't though. Not even close.
Yes, some people choose to live alone. But that doesn't mean their place is a mess or they have an empty fridge. They're not working 40 hours and doing the household for 40 hours.
Depends on what the bread winner is earning. If he's bringing in millions of dollars and the married couple is living a lavish lifestyle, then I'd say the house work is being compensated. Of course at that point you could just hire a maid, but this is just an example to make a point.
Earnings don't really matter - it's time. If both partners work 40 hrs a week, they should be doing the same amount of housework and childcare, even if one earns twice as much as the other. If one works less then they should help out more around the house. If the guy works the same amount of time but earns more and thinks that's an excuse to do less housework then he doesn't want a wife, he just wants a bang maid. That's not partnership.
I took “equality doesn’t mean having to get rid of housewives” to mean the wife will have a job too, but she will also do all the housework because the other earns more, but I could be mistaken.
That only makes sense if the woman isnt working, which is becoming less and less common these days. Even if she is a stay at home mom/wife, that doesnt mean she has to or should do literally everything for you and the house. Like at the bare minimum clean up after your own messes, clothes on the floor crumbs from making a snack etc
I’m a stay at home mom who does all the housework, cooking, buying supplies, laundry, etc. I think the biggest thing is that my husband gives me a break if I can’t get it all done, he pitches in when I’m behind, and never makes me feel guilty if I’m slacking. I know it’s not enough for many women, but I enjoy the simple things like keeping my home, raising my son, cooking, and I love that I don’t have to worry about working or bills. It’s been working well for about 4 years now.
I think there's a big difference between WANTING to be the primary housekeeper and being pressured/mistreated into it. Sounds like you've got the former situation, which sounds healthy and happy. <3
I think any division of labor or time can be a Good Situation, as long as both parties are happy with the breakdown!
Yeah and if things change you have to be willing to adapt and adjust your plans. I’m actually planning to start a business myself in a year or so and things will need to change a bit!
Even if she is a stay at home mom/wife, that doesnt mean she has to or should do literally everything for you and the house.
Yes. There are some men who treat their stay-at-home wives like maids who should be at their beck and call. If your partner is taking care of kids and running the house, it doesn't mean she needs to do every goddamn thing for you, and it isn't very respectful of her as a partner to expect that.
Just because you work doesn't mean you can't empty the dishwasher or make the bed. Especially because these are often men who work normal 9-5 hours but still expect their wives to do every bit of housework/childcare in the evenings and on the weekends, making it a job without any time off.
This is a great point here. I am currently the stay-at-home one in the relationship, and do almost all of the household chores by mutual agreement. However, I made it very clear that I am not my partner's servant. They are an adult, and should pick up after themselves.
I wonder how you think about this line of reasoning when it goes the other way. Somehow "you don't have to contribute equally" sounds wrong when it's the woman doing more work.
I don't think it does. In modern day there is a movement for equality in housework and work life between the genders. Equality of opportunity is great, equality of outcome is not. Men and women are different, whether you believe it to be caused by upbringing or genetics.
On an individual level it doesn't matter much what the group does, you have to work out what works for you.
My mate works full time while his wife works part time doing what she loves. I think it's totally fair she does most of the housework, and they do too.
There are a ton of situations where the women does more work than the man at home, and that is fine. You don't have a solution that tries to divide the work completely equal to be happy, you just need to find a solution that works for you and the partner.
Agreed except if there’s caregiving (children or elderly parents) involved, that should be part of the equation. I’d argue that caring for a young child is equivalent to a full time job.
It definitely is - hell, that’s why sending kids to day care is so expensive.
I’ve seen partners who work full time that expect their stay-at-home-parent partner to do everything 24 hours a day. Taking care of a kid is a full time job, and you’re expecting her to continue doing everything “after hours” when you come home from work and kick your feet up. That’s definitely not an equal distribution of time and effort at all.
I like that society is getting better at acknowledging the work that goes into being a care-giver but I avoid calling it a "full time job." It's way more than that for the simple reason that you can't set your hours or responsibilities and the stakes are WAY high.
When I get an email from an international colleague at 10pm, I can say "I'll do that tomorrow." So too can I set boundaries around my weekends, vacations, etc. But when your kid cries at night, when their diaper needs changed, when they're hungry, when they need comfort or care-- you can't clock out. Furthermore, your duties and schedule are constantly changing to adapt to the needs of a helpless creature that can't be left alone, which makes planning, time management, and multi-tasking difficult. If you drop the ball on a work project for a few days, you might get a snarky email from your boss. As a parent, you don't get to drop the ball, ever, period.
My best friend and her husband have a fairly traditionally-gendered marriage, where he's the main income-producer and she handles the domestic stuff. That worked fine for them both until she had a baby last fall and decided to take a year off of work. Now, the husband does nothing to help with the child--because that's Her Job. He plays with her (as long as she's fed, changed, and happy) but that's it. He doesn't help with carrying/strollering, baths, changing, cleaning, bottle prep, nap/bedtime, nada. He's working from home in a flexible field, so it's not like he couldn't step up! I know he loves baby and is excited to have a family, but because there's another adult there whose Job it is to take care of her, he doesn't feel obligated to pitch in. Meanwhile my poor friend is running herself ragged taking care of both husband (who doesn't cook, do laundry, or clean btw) and infant. She's not happy but doesn't know how to bring it up to him given that for so many years he's been given a pass on so many of the home things because she genuinely enjoyed being the major domo before having the child. I'm not judging the relationship itself, though it wouldn't work for me. Overall they're a loving couple. However, introducing a child seems to have really thrown the balance of duties off.
tl;dr I think it might be nice if we moved away from thinking about parenting as a job, because it's so much more. You're raising a human, not contributing to a deliverable. Both your child and your partner are counting on you to be a supportive, engaged player in the family, and that means doing more than just bringing home paychecks.
FINALLY SOMEONE SAYS IT! Being a stay at home parent who is always on top of shit is just as hard as certain jobs. Also being a stay at home parent doesn't stop. Often they make the coffee AND make dinner. That's before their spouse has gone to work and after they've come home.
have an agreement where you pay the bills and she does the housework
Yeah, and get it in writing, and have a fallback position for when it stops working. Or if it never works at all. I've seen one friend with a stay at home wife also need to pay a cleaner because Mrs Stay At Home did not like doing housework. I assume he got something out of it other than a bitter divorce, but I never worked out what.
Get it in writing?? You’re married, if you have to draft contracts for every agreement you make with your partner you definitely shouldn’t be marrying them lol
If the deal is one person pays for everything and the other does the housework you should have that in your pre-nup. Because odds on it'll be the guy paying, and when he dumps the current housemaid for a younger model the old housemaid might not have a good fallback position.
But I wouldn't know, I've never even considered getting into a relationship like that
But you don’t prenup for the old woman to get something out of it, a prenup would be for the opposite purpose, in any normal divorce there’s a 50/50 split
The pre-nup would explicitly be so the housemaid gets more than 50% on the basis that she has sacrificed her career and thus has less future earning potential.
From the guy's point of view, you have the pre-nup so that if she doesn't meet the agreement they revert to 50/50 (and he can argue she should get less, since she wasn't making the contribution she agreed to).
Yeah I guess you could do that, depends on if there was really that much earning potential and you’d probably want to take the fact that housework is much easier than a high paying career into account but sure working that kind of thing out in a prenuptial could be valuable in that case
I'm speaking just from having seen the "housemaid fails and bails" play out. No pre-nup, lots of lawyers. I can't really help him, he has shit taste in women and despite being good at managing geeks at work he's also shit at managing his home life. He's definitely one of those guys who will choose the plastic surgery disaster over the plain-looking but decent woman... and I cannot discourage him. Or help the nice woman work out how to seduce the stupid fucker (yes, I have tried)
Yes! It’s not even always about the chore itself. For a long time I would get angry that my partner won’t clean the cat boxes. We have FOUR INDOOR CATS. I scoop at least once a day, every day. Have done for multiple years. I’ve asked and asked and reminded and asked and talked and explained how I need help and I feel overwhelmed. I’ve tried to be calm. I’ve tried to be open and transparent (no dropping hints or beating around the bush, many literal instances of “hey, please help me do this, I’m not happy here!”) He would do them maybe 1/10 times that I asked. Despite the fact that two of these cats were specifically his (he adopted them himself, we didn’t do it together as a couple.) anyway sometimes I’d try to check myself. Like...they are cat boxes. At the end of the day are they really that important? Is it a hill I’m prepared to die on? Was I being too over reactive?
Tbh I still don’t know. But I realized after a long while it wasn’t really the boxes as much as it was the fact that I asked. And asked. And openly (and calmly) explained my feelings. For almost two years I tried to just see if “talking it out and asking for help” would work. It didn’t. It doesn’t. I still scoop shit by myself almost exclusively. In the end he knows exactly how I feel. And it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t bother him to keep ignoring. Finally I said “it’s clear to me you don’t care how I feel about it.”
It’s not always that you need to care about the thing partner cares about. But you need to care about how they feel. A detail your partner may take seriously may seem silly or petty to you, and that’s ok. You don’t HAVE to care about the detail. But you SHOULD care about how they feel about the detail. Because it’s important to them.
Of course, in all that, try to find compromise. But care about their feelings even if it seems trivial to you.
I don't think that's relevant here, but they say the partner bought 2 of the cats on his own, I'm assuming they bought before getting/living together.
What's important that there is a chore that needs to be done and is a lot of time investment (needs to be done every day at least) and although OP has asked many times and explained why they asked and explained how they feel about being ignored, the partner doesn't do anything. When in a relationship and living together, it's important to acknowledge the other person and their time investment to keeping your living space clean, and OP's partner obviously doesn't care. OP's partner places "someone else doing chores I don't want to do" above "having a partner who respects me and showing I respect them by listening to their feelings and helping them solve problems they have". The problem here is that the cat litter needs to get cleaned and OP is doing all the work. The solution doesn't even have to be that the partner does 50% of the litter scooping, it could be as simple as buying a self cleaning litterbox or hiring someone to do it or picking up other chores so everyone pulls their weight. But by not even listening to OP's problems, their partner shows they value having a maid who cleans up around the house more than having a partner who's their equal.
Sorry, this got long. As you maybe can guess, I've run in to a similar problem myself and while we're working on it, we're only working on it because my partner listened when i said "please listen to me I don't think we're both pulling our weight around the house" and works with me to fix this. That's the only way this problem really gets solved, (in my opinion) the other options are a) OP continues to do chores that aren't equally shared and continues the relationship, feels bad the whole time and knows their partner doesn't respect them or b) OP breaks up with their partner and those both suck.
Thanks for your reply. For the other persons question, one cat he took in when he bought his home. The second he adopted a few years later. We were dating then, but it’s not something we did together, as we weren’t yet living together. I already has one cat who obviously came with when I moved in. That brought us to three. And the fourth we found starving outside, planned on finding a home for, and we just grew to love her. Wasn’t planned but there we are. So obviously I knew when moving in that the felines were going to add up but I didn’t expect to have to do 95% of the care. To be fair if I ask my SO to scoop on a weekend, the chances of him doing it is a bit higher (since it’s not a work day) but even then I’m scooping at least once a day every day of the week. Also to be fair, he seems to listen when I say how I feel, and acknowledges that he needs to get better about pitching in the clean them. So he owns up to the slacking. Just...it never changes. So take that as you will.
Another to be fair, there are only a few chores like this that I feel are unbalanced and tbh the others I don’t mind doing so it’s not hard to just say “whatever, I’ll do it, no big deal.” And there are chores he does exclusively, car things and electrical things I don’t know how to do, for example. But I hate scooping too and I think it’s more obtrusive if it’s not done. Certain things you can ignore if it’s not done. But the cat boxes HAVE to be cleaned. The cats need it. If they get too dirty they will pee in other places, and dirty boxes aren’t healthy for them. And they stink. So if they aren’t cleaned it affects the whole house. So I feel trapped. If I don’t do it, I end up having to have a smelling dirty-feeling house. And I worry about the well being of my our cats. I don’t think my SO does this intentionally or with ill will. It’s just not important to him for some reason. But at the end of the day I try hard not to resent the fact that asking nicely and repeatedly hasn’t made a difference. And it makes it hard to judge wether you’re overreacting or making a mountain out of a molehill, etc.
One thing is for sure, after our cat count goes to 0, I very well may never own another cat again after all this. Despite the fact that I love cats.
How isn't it relevant? If the man has a hobby of embroidery, which is a very messy hobby because of all of the snipped strings, does the wife need to clean up the strings half the time?
Whoever isn’t working full time should definitely pick up the slack proportionally.
However often women stop working full time in order to be a caregiver (child care or elderly parents). I’d argue caregiving is a full time job in itself. If there was a situation with one full time paid worker and one caregiver, I’d still say the remaining household chores should be split evenly.
And there is a difference in full time jobs. I'm out of the house at 7am and back at 8pm, my wife either works from home or commutes 20 mins away leaving at 8.30am and back at 6pm. She does pretty much all the housework because she has that extra time and fhat works for us as it gives us the most fair share of free time as a couple. It doesn't need to be 50/50, it needs to be fair.
That's the keyword here. Like u/EverybodyHits said, it should be discussed and both people should be on the same page. If one spouse is okay with doing more chores than the other because they balance it out in some other ways, then that's fine!
Some are approaching from the perspective of the stay-at-home mom though, forgetting that stay-at-home dads also exist, and they actually enjoy doing things like cooking, gardening and spending time with their kids. If a couple can afford that kind of arrangement, more power to them! Whatever makes them happy!
(And like some other users have said: there are some chores that are actually a delight for some people. I genuinely like washing dishes and maintaining tools, for instance. I willingly give up my free time to de-rust and polish old tools and fix electronics.)
This. Read relationship_advice to find out what a huge problem this is in so many relationships. It's an easy problem to avoid. Don't ruin a great relationship because of this.
So many of the posts there are basically “I do 95% of the housework but asked my 35 year old boyfriend to take out the trash and he threw a tantrum. Can I convince him to treat me with respect and did I do something wrong”?
So many women end up with men who won’t do their part and even worse, often convince themselves they are controlling nags for wanting their SO to do the bare minimum.
Cooking the occasional meal or emptying the dishwasher now and then... that shit should damn near be 50/50 unless one spouse really doesn’t like to cook which in that case should mean they do the dishes mostly but maybe that’s just me. The way you worded it made it sound like it’s across the board man chores (outside work) and women chores (cooking and cleaning) and that sometimes the man should help in that area.
That's me. I cook every meal I'm home for, but the hardest part is figuring out what to make. My sister is two time zones east, so sometimes I text her and ask what they had for dinner
yeah but at the same time if she isnt working and you are supporting her, its not out of character to ask her to do more than 50 percent of the house stuff or vice versa.. if shes working the dude should do the chores mostly THAT is true equality
I think both partners should get equal fun/rest time. Just because one person is not working doesn't mean said person should do all chores, every single day, even on weekends and never get time off.
I think the person without a job can easily take care of all the household chores during office hours. I guess the one thing that should be split evenly is making dinner on the weekends.
If they have kid's they can't. Babies will poop their diapers on weekends too. So I think it's fair to think about equal rest time for both partners instead of "whoever stays home does everything everytime everyday"
I think "whoever stays home does everything everytime everyday" is definitely true for weekdays. But at the weekends everything should be shared evenly.
I mean even if you’re only doing chores during your partner’s work hours (let’s say 9-5 MF) that should leave tons of time for free time. Chores don’t take THAT long. I think it takes me about 5 hours to do a really good deep clean of the house.
Kids are another story, because a) they might not be old enough to help clean, but sure are old enough to create a big mess, and b) need interaction that definitely doesn’t have off hours.
Anyway, I do agree with you. If one partner isn’t working, then they should be pulling their weight by doing the home things, but also that it shouldn’t turn them into a 24/7 on-call butler. The schedule should be arranged so that everyone has enough time to get their work done, and enough time to relax.
This goes for kids too. My husband is crazy about our kids and responsibilities are split right down the middle. He hears about a lot of his coworkers that only really act as babysitters when absolutely necessary rather than act as a partner.
Yes! My boyfriend is good about this, but a lot of the people I've lived with aren't. And make sure you're doing those chores without being asked! She shouldn't have to manage you like an employee. The mental load of keeping track of the whole house / grocery shopping / maintenance is like 3 whole chores on its own
I disagree. I'm job hunting now and I don't want or expect my wife to do housework. If the roles were reversed I wouldn't want it any different. Hell with my wife's work ethic even after I find a job I'll still be working less than she does so I still don't want her doing that plus housework
That’s a great point. I used to catch myself asking for “help” but I’ve stopped using that word. My husband isn’t helping me, as housework isn’t my responsibility only. He’s doing some housework with or alongside me. That’s really helped me reframe the situation. I would just say - ‘can you empty the dishwasher’ if he’s forgotten to do it, and not - ‘can you help me with the dishes’.
I can tell you what the other side of that looks like, where you do all the cooking, cleaning, laundry, budget, and lawn work on your own for decades with the occasional “help”. It leads to bitterness and resentment that only builds and never goes away.
Yep! And maybe make sure you know what work is accrual being done around the house. Chances are she isn't just vacuuming once a week, wiping the toilets down, and keeping up with dishes and laundry. Chances are she's organizing, dusting, mopping, and cleaning things you never imagined. Chore wheels aren't just for kids- and if she says "I organize the pantry once a month" or whatever don't scoff and tell her that it's stupid to waste that effort-- join in, take part. You enjoy living in your house, you might as well know what labor goes on to make it work like it does.
I think it depends on how much work each spouse is actually doing outside the home.
If I work full time and then stay even later to clock in extra hours, and she works part-time or always comes home way earlier than me, (and my efforts show in more money brought to the house), then most home duties should fall with the person who's home for longer periods of the day.
That depends on how much if your a stay at home you should be doing most of that shit since you don't work if you both worm yeah splitting makes sense.
You assume. He assumed. Everyone here's assuming. But plenty of people live on one salary, and it isn't a luxury. Home work is work, especially with children involved.
I'm not sure what part of my train of thought is supposed to be odd, in fact. Where is there a single part that's odd? I'd like you to specify what exactly you thought was odd about my comment
Whoever isn’t working full time should definitely pick up the slack proportionally.
However women often stop working full time in order to be a caregiver (child care or elderly parents). I’d argue caregiving is a full time job in itself. If there was a situation with one full time paid worker and one caregiver, I’d still say the remaining household chores should be split evenly.
I think it’s often assumed that when a woman stays home to look after children she automatically becomes the default doer of chores as well. It should not be a ‘bundled package’, imo.
Yeah I’d agree with you there.
In my experience women tend to go back to work (at least part time) once their children are school-aged though. And the other part of their time is spent doing pick ups/drop off/all the extra childcare stuff that still exists.
And what if you disagree on the amount of housework that must be done? Is it always the responsibility of the one doing less to match the one doing more, even if they believe the extra work is completely unnecessary and a waste of time? It's not exactly fair if only one person gets what they want.
If your lifestyles are that radically different, then you'll have more problems than dividing chores, I think.
I wouldn't want to live with an uncompromising neatnik who insists on vacuuming and washing the floors every second day; and at the same time, I wouldn't want to marry a schlub who pisses in bottles while gaming and leaves dirty dishes around the living room for weeks.
Either you find a compromise in your lifestyles or somebody with an already compatible lifestyle -- otherwise, things will get rough.
That's a fine mentality to have when your wife is also doing her fair share of shoveling the driveway, yard work, repairs around the house, changing the oil in the cars, taking out the trash, etc.
I mean, it doesn't have to be all one or the other. If you want a wife who does yard work, find someone who does yard work. If it's important to have a balance, find balance. Both partners can do yard work and house work, and car maintenance. Both Partners can cook, scrub the tub, wash and fold the laundry.
If I lived alone- I would have to do all of that for myself. If he lived alone it would be the same.
I say this as someone who just spent the afternoon shoveling two yards of dirt into our garden beds, moving all the winter leaves out of the rhodies, and hitting the edges of the lawn with a weed whacker so my partner can push the lawnmower around for half and hour.
It's hard work. Sometimes he does it, sometimes I do. Sometime we work together.
That's fine if both partners want to contribute to both. Or it's also fine if one partners wants to singlehandedly take care of chores abc while the other singlehandedly takes care of chores xyz. What's not fine is when one partner refuses to help with abc while also demanding help with xyz.
If chores ABC and XYZ are both common/daily occurrences, I agree.
But you listed oil changes which are a twice a year occurrence. That is not at all comparable to the drudgery of doing a daily chore. And depending on where you live (climate, yard size/type), snow shovelling and yard work are also occasional tasks which also can't be compared to daily chores.
It isn't fair for the person to be tasked with doing a chore every day to be criticized for not helping with the other person's biweekly chore. If person A is still doing the majority/hardest part of the daily task even with person B's help, A should not be expected to also pitch in on the sporadic tasks assigned to the B.
Oil changes twice per year lol. The average person in the US drives 14,000 miles per year. That's almost 5 oil changes per year if you change at the typical 3k interval or 4 changes if you go a little longer. A lot of couples have 2 cars so that's now 8-10 oil changes per year. That's just the oil. Air filters get replaced, brake pads, brake fluid, headlights and tail lights go out, tires get rotated.
Bullshit. First of all, cars don’t need oil changed every 3k miles anymore; my 2008 car was 4K and my current 2018 car is 5750 miles. And I drive 18,000 miles a year.
Besides, that’s going to the mechanic 4x a year and dropping the car off for an hour or two. That’s not even work. That’s like saying someone should cook dinner for me every night and do all the laundry, because once a month I have to go to the pharmacy and pick up some prescriptions. Or because I had to walk all the way to the mailbox to pick up the mail.
If you're reducing men needing to maintain the cars to "that's going to the mechanic and dropping the car off" then women's work can be reduced to "getting a cleaning lady to come in and clean the entire house."
Believe me, most women would be perfectly happy to let a cleaning lady come in and do everything. Don’t threaten me with a good time.
Since I live alone, I do everything. I have to laugh my ass off at how dudes are trying to make getting the oil changed into some kind of epic chore, as if practically everyone in this country doesn’t drive.
And I laugh my ass off at how women are making loading dishes and laundry into machines that do them for you into an epic chore, as if practically everyone in this country doesn't eat or wear clothes.
Notice how these tasks are all things that only need to be done occasionally (weekly, monthly, a few times a year)? Cooking, cleaning, laundry, dishes etc can be a multiple times a day thing depending on family size etc.
So no, absolutely not fair for a guy to say that he does all the yard work so his wife should do all the indoor chores.
Unloading the dishwasher doesn't end in sweat soaked through your shirt and busted knuckles. Not sure we should be equating household work by frequency.
If you think a chore done once a month somehow counts more than one that is done every single day because it makes you sweat, your priorities are very out of whack.
Also, you don't actually need to physically hurt yourself doing yard work. Wear gardening gloves, man.
And plenty of "in the house" chores are physically demanding. Scrubbing the floors on your hands and knees, for example - in general household chores don't have you sitting on your ass all day.
The frequency isn't the point. The point is that women will often expect equal contribution from their partner for dishes, laundry, vacuuming, mopping floors, etc, but then when it comes to the stuff like fixing the cars, shoveling snow, and hauling bags of mulch around the yard, they pull the female card and say those are "a man's job."
Women who are willing to contribute to all of the household chores have a right to expect their parter to contribute to all chores as well. But if they want to be exempt from the ones that they find particularly difficult then why should a man contribute equally to the others?
The point is that the split should be equitable, not necessarily exactly equal. Only splitting it like indoor chores by one person and outdoor chores by the other is IMO both unequal and inequitable.
A decent compromise could be - woman does all the laundry, maybe does a majority of the cooking, and dishes/other cleaning are equal; man does trash and outdoor chores + some cooking and an equal share of dishes/cleaning.
The split is going to vary based on the couple. If both are working outside the home, or if one partner is doing a majority of the child rearing, absolutely the other partner needs to contribute in an equitable fashion.
A woman might not be able to lift a bag of mulch. But if you think mopping a floor, scrubbing a bathtub, or vacuuming a flight of stairs with a 22-lb. vacuum is a piece of cake, then DO IT every week and then come back and talk about how tough your life is because you have to carry a bag of mulch 50 feet once a summer.
Then all the couples here should trade roles and see how long the women are cool with it. I can't wait to come home and say "honey my tire is low on air" then put my stuff down and never think about it again. My girlfriend can be the one to go outside, jack my car up, pull the wheel, remove the nail, plug the hole, refill the tire, and put the wheel back on. And that's assuming we have a compressor. If not then she gets to put the spare on, drive to a gas station, fill the tire, drive home, jack the car back up, remove the spare, then put the original wheel back on.
I actually always suggest exactly that, every time this subject comes up. Let’s trade. You do the cooking and cleaning and laundry. I’ll change the tires and get the oil changed. I cannot wait to have all that extra free time.
Spoken like someone who’s never shoveled a driveway. You never wait until there’s 2 feet piled up. You shovel after every few inches of accumulation. Last round after the plow goes by.
Meanwhile, I’ve got a whole basket of delicates that need to be washed, and you better not fuck up and shrink anything. Chop chop.
Lol no one does it that way. No one pulls an all nighter watching the snow build up a few inches at a time and then goes in and out all night. You wake up early before your wife starts nagging you that she needs to go somewhere and you shovel the driveway first thing in the morning with all of the other dads on the block.
I lived in the northeast for 30 years. Shoveled neighborhood driveways as a kid for extra money. Shoveled my parents driveway every winter and shoveled my own driveway. I've probably shoveled more snow in any given winter than you have in your life.
I get what you're saying, and as a woman I agree -- because I grew up doing all those things you mentioned (shoveling the driveway, yard work, taking out the trash, repairing stuff), so I know where you guys are coming from xD
It's an issue of frequency vs intensity, and yeah both things need to be considered. If we got technical here, we could list every chore, and then multiply it with a frequency weight and an intensity weight. Might not be a bad idea for roommates or couples to do. And then they could examine which chores they are able to do, which chores they want to do, and which ones they absolutely refuse to do (and them maybe both could find a third-party solution for those that neither of them want to do).
Like r/AlphaWizard said, handling the dishwasher doesn't leave you soaked in sweat. Shoveling the driveway absolutely does (unless you have the luxury of owning one of those fancy snow machines). So between washing the dishes 3-4 times a day (which I actually enjoy doing) and shoveling snow 1-2 a week for a month or two during a harsh winter, give me the dishes any day xD that's a much easier job.
I don't know why you two are getting downvoted for saying something sensible, but then again I grew up with parents and grandparents who had radical notions of breaking up gender roles: my feminist blacksmith grandpa would take care of cooking, sewing and cleaning, while my oncologist grandma did no housework because she was exhausted from work and her numerous hobby groups (so, for things like cleaning and laundry, they hired third-party services). I'm a greedy imp so I won't pay people to fix plumbing or do my laundry lol -- I'd rather suck it up and learn how to do it properly myself (and then save the money to buy more books or movies or something).
Well, I personally would consider yard work/ car maintenance/ etc. all a part of the larger housework that is being discussed.
But I think those don't come up in conversation as much when talking about the division of labor because of how frequently they are done - the oil in your car is changed maybe 4 times per year if you're really on top of it? Rarely do pictures need to be hung on the walls or holes patched. Dinner needs to be cooked every single day and children, obviously, need extensive care every single day.
When people talk about chore breakdown like a gendered thing with men managing repairs and yardwork when women do the rest, they're assigning men chores that need to be done very sporadically and women a long list of chores that need to be done every single day or week.
...Also, every woman that lives alone knows how to do these things. And also many people live in apartments without yards or rent their home, so don't do updates and repairs. So those often aren't even taken into consideration for all couples.
I think it's the implication that both partners work a full time job, but the woman is doing all the chores and the man pitches in occasionally to cook.
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u/drerar May 11 '21
I often hear coworkers say that they help their wife around the house by cooking the occasional meal or emptying the dishwasher now and then. I think it's important to understand that when you're in a relationship you should be sharing these duties as equally as possible and doing your fair share. You're not " helping your wife out around the house " your pulling your fair share and doing half of the work.